Thanks, I did do some searching late last night and came across several of those threads and I'm pretty sure at this point the PS is at the very least suspect - absolutely no power/no activity/no lights when the power cord is plugged in now - and as you note, it needs to be eliminated as a problem cause before continuing. I'm leaning heavily towards the Weaknees exchange, looked at Ebay but figured I could easily end up with someone elses failing PS if I bought a used S3. I'm not proficient enough to do any re-soldering myself so replacing the offending caps is not really an option, and in my area I don't know of anywhere that would do that sort of work.

That's actually a very valid concern, since the power supplies are all the same age, and the odds of them also having capacitors about to fail are quite high.

Replacing the caps is actually very easy for someone that's done that type of work, no friends or family with that skill set that you can bribe with food or beverages? Since I usually am that friend/family member, they know a good scotch or a BBQ meal usually are winners in getting me to say ok to a job like that.

__________________"There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out."

You could look in the yellow pages for TV/VCR Repair or electronics/computer repair.

I did call 2 places, there are very few in this area that even do that sort of work and they both said it would be a week to 10 days before it could be completed, my guess is that they don't even do it themselves instead sending it somewhere else to be done.

I needed the DVR back in service very soon so I opted for the WeaKnees exchange. Expensive, but it's plug and play and being in the same state(Calif) I should have it in 2 days or less.

That's actually a very valid concern, since the power supplies are all the same age, and the odds of them also having capacitors about to fail are quite high.

Replacing the caps is actually very easy for someone that's done that type of work, no friends or family with that skill set that you can bribe with food or beverages? Since I usually am that friend/family member, they know a good scotch or a BBQ meal usually are winners in getting me to say ok to a job like that.

If I set my mind to it I could probably pull it off, but without having complete confidence in my own ability I opted for the purchase. No family members or friends with that sort of skill set either. Basically, if I didn't need the machine soon I would just try it myself, but time and cost and proficiency considerations pointed to just buying the refurb.

I have a Series3 HD (the OLED one) TCD648250B and a new 2TB drive I'm trying to set up. I had been running a 1TB in it for a few years but it went belly up shortly after its warranty expired.

The new disk is a WD20EURS.

I have an original mfsbackup from the 250GB disk. Using MFSLive I am able to restore the old backup to the new disk, but not expand it. I understand that this is a known limitation of MFSTools to be able to expand on >1TB HDDs.

Next I tried JMFS for its expansion capabilities, but it is not recognizing that there is a Tivo filesystem on the disk.

I read somewhere about possibly needing to have a newer version of the Tivo OS. I put the new 2TB drive (having the 250GB image restored on it) in the Tivo and it booted just fine. After a couple of days it got updated to 11k.

I put the drive back in my host PC, booted MFSLvie and got a fresh mfsbackup for good measure. I then booted to my JMFS live CD wanting to expand, but it still does not recognize a valid Tivo system on the disk.

I have a Series3 HD (the OLED one) TCD648250B and a new 2TB drive I'm trying to set up. I had been running a 1TB in it for a few years but it went belly up shortly after its warranty expired.

The new disk is a WD20EURS.

I have an original mfsbackup from the 250GB disk. Using MFSLive I am able to restore the old backup to the new disk, but not expand it. I understand that this is a known limitation of MFSTools to be able to expand on >1TB HDDs.

Next I tried JMFS for its expansion capabilities, but it is not recognizing that there is a Tivo filesystem on the disk.

I read somewhere about possibly needing to have a newer version of the Tivo OS. I put the new 2TB drive (having the 250GB image restored on it) in the Tivo and it booted just fine. After a couple of days it got updated to 11k.

I put the drive back in my host PC, booted MFSLvie and got a fresh mfsbackup for good measure. I then booted to my JMFS live CD wanting to expand, but it still does not recognize a valid Tivo system on the disk.

I'm stumped. Does anybody have any hints for me?

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Search the forum for the DVRBARS utility thread. It's the newest (Windows-based) tool/utility that may help you out. If you PM the software author, with your TCD model number, he'll PM you back with a way to get the image you need, if he has access to it. If he helps you out, please consider a donation to his PayPal account. Besides all the time and effort he's given to us for free, in the form of his utility, he pays for a very large dropbox account, and that isn't for his benefit. It's for ours. Best of luck, with resolving your issue.

Well the DVRBARS utility can't expand, which is what I needed. But, while browsing that thread, I saw a post about someone using MFSAdd inside WinMFS for expanding the OLED S3. That, alas, worked for me too.

So thanks for directing me to that thread, even if it were for the wrong reason!
Tom

I have a Series3 HD (the OLED one) TCD648250B and a new 2TB drive I'm trying to set up. I had been running a 1TB in it for a few years but it went belly up shortly after its warranty expired.

The new disk is a WD20EURS.

I have an original mfsbackup from the 250GB disk. Using MFSLive I am able to restore the old backup to the new disk, but not expand it. I understand that this is a known limitation of MFSTools to be able to expand on >1TB HDDs.

Next I tried JMFS for its expansion capabilities, but it is not recognizing that there is a Tivo filesystem on the disk.

I read somewhere about possibly needing to have a newer version of the Tivo OS. I put the new 2TB drive (having the 250GB image restored on it) in the Tivo and it booted just fine. After a couple of days it got updated to 11k.

I put the drive back in my host PC, booted MFSLvie and got a fresh mfsbackup for good measure. I then booted to my JMFS live CD wanting to expand, but it still does not recognize a valid Tivo system on the disk.

I'm stumped. Does anybody have any hints for me?

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Just for the record, jmfs does not recognize a drive from anything older than the S3 HD and HD XL as a valid TiVo drive, and of course the original S3, the OLED model, came first, so it's among the ones older than the HD.

Well the DVRBARS utility can't expand, which is what I needed. But, while browsing that thread, I saw a post about someone using MFSAdd inside WinMFS for expanding the OLED S3. That, alas, worked for me too.

So thanks for directing me to that thread, even if it were for the wrong reason!
Tom

Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. But I knew if you didn't stumble upon the right method, somebody else would point you there. I don't have anything older than a TiVo HD. So, I'm not the expert on the S3 OLED, but there's plenty around here.

I have a Series3 HD (the OLED one) TCD648250B and a new 2TB drive I'm trying to set up. I had been running a 1TB in it for a few years but it went belly up shortly after its warranty expired.

The new disk is a WD20EURS.

I have an original mfsbackup from the 250GB disk. Using MFSLive I am able to restore the old backup to the new disk, but not expand it. I understand that this is a known limitation of MFSTools to be able to expand on >1TB HDDs.

Next I tried JMFS for its expansion capabilities, but it is not recognizing that there is a Tivo filesystem on the disk.

I read somewhere about possibly needing to have a newer version of the Tivo OS. I put the new 2TB drive (having the 250GB image restored on it) in the Tivo and it booted just fine. After a couple of days it got updated to 11k.

I put the drive back in my host PC, booted MFSLvie and got a fresh mfsbackup for good measure. I then booted to my JMFS live CD wanting to expand, but it still does not recognize a valid Tivo system on the disk.

I'm stumped. Does anybody have any hints for me?

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Apologies, I didn't read your post as thoroughly as I should have.

Are you unable to use WinMFS to do the copy and expansion?

(if using WinMFS, do the copy, then turn it down when it offers to expand, then click on mfsadd to do the expand as a separate step. I do not know why this is necessary, but it is and if you do it that way it should work fine)

A TCD648250B "OLED" with a totally dead 1TB drive.
A new WD20EURS 2TB drive.
A truncated mfsbackup file from 3+ years ago when it had the original 250GB drive and old (8.x?) software.

I restored my old backup to the new 2TB drive, using mfsrestore, without expanding.
I installed this drive in the Tivo, let it run until it got a software update to 11.0k.
I installed it back into my host PC and used WinMFS to expand it using the MFSAdd menu and telling it to ignore the 1TB limit.

Another day, another broken S3 OLED Tivo. After having it pulled from the rack weeks ago I finally cracked it open, and yup, a bad C701 capacitor. I've previously repaired my Mitsubishi TV years ago with bad caps so I think I can do this pretty easily. I've ordered the parts and we'll see how it goes.

Follow-up...

I went ahead and replaced the bad capacitor without too much trouble. The Tivo Series 3 OLED came back to life and for awhile, everything seemed to be ok. But after 9 hours, the unit rebooted and locked again on the second screen. After running the kickstart 54, it was determined that the boot drive was failing. I had suspected that it was failing but I'd forgotten about it since my Tivo had been down and out of the rack for so long (months now).

I do have a WD10EACS that isn't new but it's available and I ran it through WD's diagnostic utility (extended scan) with flying colors. Since my Tivo is mated to an external drive, I tried to get the Tivo to boot enough to get to the point that the drive would divorce so I could do a proper dd_rescue to no avail. Doing a dd_rescue anyway completely failed after only a minute of copying...the drive hits a bad patch and then stops being responsive entirely. I'm thinking that the 9 hours it was up was the last stand. So I cannot salvage any information on this drive.

My next plan is to pull the hard drive of the other working Tivo Series 3 OLED that I own, dd copy that drive to my WD10EACS and boot it in the problem Tivo. Divorce it from the external drive it's expecting to see, and then ask the MFS utilities to expand the drive to take up all of the 1 gig space, and then mate it back to the external drive when I'm done. And along the way, I have to make sure I run the utility to head off the soft reboot issue.

Since my Tivo is mated to an external drive, I tried to get the Tivo to boot enough to get to the point that the drive would divorce so I could do a proper dd_rescue to no avail. Doing a dd_rescue anyway completely failed after only a minute of copying...the drive hits a bad patch and then stops being responsive entirely.

A couple of suggestions:

Try the DvrBARS Windows TiVo drive copy utility available in a thread here somewhere. It stops on errors, but does not abort, so you have to keep an eye on it and tell it to continue after each error. It allowed me to copy most of a failing drive where everything else just wouldn't. It's donationware, so if it does work for you, consider sending the author a few dollars as I did.

Also, I have had some luck in the past copying "reluctant" drives by wrapping a cold drive in saran wrap, and putting it in the fridge or freezer for an hour or so before attempting a copy, unwrapping it, then keeping a fan on it as it warms up.

A followup on my troubles, it was the power supply, refurb installed and everything is looking good.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Suggestion: A week before the warranty expires, check for bulging caps.

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I wrap mine in a towel. The drives I used this on were close to bricks to begin with. Before I even use this method I try fans and A/C vents first in that order. I think condensation is more of a long term problem (corrosion) than short term. Magnetism is not affected by water. The heads and motor might if the condensate has impurities that might conduct current and cause shorts. Externally the towel wicks away moisture. Usually have to re freeze several times and copy the drive in sections. When I have it available, dry ice and a towel on the circuit board of the drive works as well and sometimes lasts longer.

__________________
"Delay is preferable to error" - Thomas Jefferson
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" - Sir Isaac Newton

Aren't hard drives hermetically sealed?
Do they even have enough air in there to condense?
Wouldn't the spinning platters create enough internal air flow to prevent condensation?

They all have at least one filtered breather port. This is the reason why there's always a warning that says "DO NOT COVER ANY DRIVES HOLES".

There are several internal filters as well, that catch any microscopic debris that may wind up in the drive's internal airflow.

I would hazard a guess that these filters have a desiccant (humidity absorbing agent), but they can only trap so much, and then they would be saturated (if they have desiccant in them).

So, with that said, The whole "drive freezing" method, should be a last resort, and the drive taken out of service after this has been done to it.

It's usually done for one of two reasons:

1: Delaying the onset of a thermal intermittent issue.

2: Thickening the fluid of the Fluid Dynamic Bearings, so that the platters don't wobble.

I've used the method many times. It has worked.

I feel I should also note that the last shipment of OEM drives I received from WD, had HUGE warnings on all the sides of the box with a chart of what drive temperature the drives may have been exposed to in shipping, and how many hours they needed to be left sealed, and what temperature they should be at before being opened, and before powered-on.

I don't think that they'd print that on the box, if it wasn't a drive killer, or something that could cause premature failure.

Even with DRY ICE, the cold will still cause moisture condensation. Most DIY data recovery websites now advocate using those electronic devices that draw heat away from the drive (The ones that get cold on one side and hot on the other), and adhering heat sinks with fans to strategic places, rather than chucking the drive in the freezer, or even the fridge.

It IS true that a microscopic droplet of water on a drive platter could shear the head right off the actuator arm.

I've heard various things about the freezing method. Honestly, while it might be nice to have the old recordings, it's not required. But since the drive is going to get recycled anyway, it might be ok to try it. The big problem everybody talks about it condensation on the platters. I wonder if throwing rice into the bag with the drive might mitigate some of that?

But since I have a second Tivo S3 that's working, I can easily clone its primary hard drive, install it, divorce it from the expected second hard drive it would look for and then expand the hard drive with the available MFS utilities out there. Once that is done, than I can mate it to the available second drive and I'm done.

I'll take a couple of days for me to find the time to do all of this. But it should work.

I have the image for the Tivo HDR112 on a flash drive and I am using winmfs to put it onto a PATA/IDE drive. I use mfscopy from WinMFS and it seems to work OK. But when I put the drive in the Tivo - it makes the phone call, but fails while loading the data. Can anybody think of what I might be doing wrong and how to fix this problem.

I have the image for the Tivo HDR112 on a flash drive and I am using winmfs to put it onto a PATA/IDE drive. I use mfscopy from WinMFS and it seems to work OK. But when I put the drive in the Tivo - it makes the phone call, but fails while loading the data. Can anybody think of what I might be doing wrong and how to fix this problem.

Thank you.

Have you run a Clear & Delete Everything? Unless the image came from that TiVo you have to run C&DE to "marry" it to the motherboard.

I have the image for the Tivo HDR112 on a flash drive and I am using winmfs to put it onto a PATA/IDE drive. I use mfscopy from WinMFS and it seems to work OK. But when I put the drive in the Tivo - it makes the phone call, but fails while loading the data. Can anybody think of what I might be doing wrong and how to fix this problem.

Thank you.

S1s that use the phone often have problems connecting satisfactorily to the TiVo servers.

OK, here's what has happened so far with getting my dead Tivo S3 OLED working again:

1. Resoldered new capacitor
2. Attempted to clone original HD (failed)
3. Secure newer WD10EACS 1 gig drive I had, do WDIDLE3 on it.
4. Clone 250 gig original drive from my other Tivo S3 OLED to the WD10EACS
5. Fired up the dead Tivo. Tivo now boots.
6. Moved to erase all information from the Tivo to mate with the motherboard
7. After next successful reboot, pulled drive for a mfsadd to use the entire 1 gig drive

So everything seems to be ok, except for one thing. I cannot add the second external hard drive to this system, even though it was a part of its configuration for years. I even went and erased it so that the Tivo wouldn't be confused by it. But when you ask the Tivo to mate to it, it seems to go ahead and do it, reboots but then the amount of HD space doesn't seem to change. On the system page, the hard drive is listed, but it doesn't seem to be used.